Operation Dark Heart

On September 24, 2010, we published Operation Dark Heart. We have been receiving letters of concern that we changed the text due to government censorship, and that the government "burned" the books from our initial printing.  The true facts are that the government bought the first printing in its entirety and we destroyed and recycled those copies at their request. The changes we made in the text were made at the request of the author. The Department of Defense in fact wanted further changes to the book which we refused to make. Below is the Note from the Publisher that is included in the second printing.

On Friday, August 13, 2010, just as St. Martin’s Press was readying its initial shipments of this book to be released from our warehouse, the Department of Defense contacted us to express its concern that our publication of Operation Dark Heart could cause damage to U.S. national security. This was unexpected, since we knew the author, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, had worked closely with the Department of the Army, and had made a number of changes to the text, after which it passed the Army’s operational security review. However, the Department of Defense, and the Defense Intelligence Agency in particular, insisted that the Army’s review was insufficient. Thereafter, Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer met with the Department of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other interested U.S. intelligence agencies to review changes and redactions that they demanded he make to his book. Because Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer is a security professional himself, with some twenty-five years of experience, we were confident then, and remain confident now, that he had not revealed anything in his book that could damage our national security, harm our troops, or harm U.S. military intelligence efforts or assets. However, based on the discussions our author had with the government, he requested that we incorporate some of the government’s changes into a revised edition of his book while redacting other text he was told was classified, though he disagreed with that assessment. 

Because we support our author fully, we honored his request that we make those changes and redactions.  The text that follows is the result of the extraordinary review of Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer’s book by the Department of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other U.S. intelligence agencies.  We apologize for any frustration readers may encounter in reading Operation Dark Heart in this redacted form, but we are confident Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer’s remarkable and vivid story will shine through nonetheless.

—Thomas Dunne
New York, September 27, 2010